A three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday rejected Mayor Mitch Landrieu's arguments that circumstances had changed since January, when a Louisiana federal judge approved the decree.

The 5th Circuit panel said it "agreed with the district court that the record reveals no change in circumstances after the city proposed the consent decree that justifies the city's attempt to vacate it."

The police reforms could cost about $50 million in the coming years. The decree covers a series of requirements for overhauling policies and procedures for use of force, training, interrogation, searches and arrests, recruitment and supervision.

Nearly 40 years after receiving a life sentence for his role in the largest mass abduction in U.S. history, James Schoenfeld -- one of the three infamous Chowchilla school bus kidnappers -- will walk out of a California prison this week a free man.